Snippy
Sniper is the second main character in the webcomic series "Romantically Apocalyptic" by Vitaly S Alexius. He is referred to as "Snippy" as well. Other than his visions of the past, present and future and inability to discern which is which, while trapped in the Biomass 117, he is considered the only sane member of the group, besides maybe the new recruit Engineer. Background In the flashbacks after he gets stuck in the monster known as the Biomatrix 117, it was discovered that he worked for the GOOD Directorate Inc as a stereotypical pencil pusher. Charles Snippy was part of the 1% of the population unable to connect their mind to the Internet via a neural interface, and thus unable to Interact with The Directorate's "ANNET" system. Since the ANNET's transmitter towers were causing him terrible headaches and nightmares, Snippy began sabotaging it's servers. It seems he was even part of a plan by the 1% to take out all the transmitter towers. Snippy doesn't remember though, whether he actually went as far as sabotaging ANNET's core. Whatever the 1% may have been planning, the apocalypse appears to have interfered with it. Due to his inability to connect, Snippy was able to survive (with all of his memory and mind intact) from ANNET going berserk, when Captain corrupted her data banks by spilling tea over them. A while before the apocalypse he was transferred to the "Dead Zone Tourism" branch of G-Directorate, where he led tourists and scientists on journeys through the wasteland that Earth had become due to massive chemical and radioactive pollution caused by the Directorate (and other companies). The last tour he guided resulted in the deaths of every single one of the scientists he was supposed to protect, leaving him alone in the wasteland. It seems that the tour was to investigate an anomaly, that Snippy described as a 'wishing well', and that the scientists killed each other while possessed by the desire to have it for themselves. The anomaly promised Snippy that all of his wishes would come true; he ignored it, but secretly fears that it was his wish that brought the beginning of the Apocalypse, since he was sick of the ANNET-controlled humanity. It was discovered in a page of Pilot's diary, that Sniper claims to be an atheist (although this was after Pilot tied him to a couch and tried to get him to join "The Church of Captain"). It is further suggested in his ask-blog entries that Snippy is of Britishorigins. Appearance Charles Snippy is seen wearing a custom-created gas mask with blue goggles, but unlike other characters, it is shown that his goggle-caps can act like eyebrows, giving him a wide range of expressions. He wears a black and white "New Age Style" Good Directorate issued Officer Uniform with a hoodie. It has been shown that this uniform is 100% fireproof. Until Comic #26, he carried a rifle with him. Due to Captain's rescue plan, it was destroyed inside of an Alien flying saucer where Snippy had forgotten it. He grabbed a new one in Comic #42 during a battle with the Biomatrix. Pre-apocalyptic Snippy's face is shown to be thin with scruffy dark brown hair and light blue eyes. It is unknown how much his appearance has changed since then. Personality Maybe aside from the recently recruited Engineer, Sniper is the only person in Captain's group deemed "sane", unlike Captain, who is utterly insane, and Pilot, who lost most of his memories after being disconnected from the ANNET. As a result, it is usually Mr. Snippy who is forced to carry out Captain's dangerous and often bizzare requests. Snippy still feels guilty not being able to protect that last group of scientists he was supposed to guide through the wasteland before the apocalypse. He feels even more guilty about the possibility that he might indirectly have caused the apocalypse either by an unconscious wish to the 'wishing well' anomaly or his attempts at destroying the ANNET. He fears loneliness, as it leads to him brooding about the mistakes in his past life. So he rather endures Captain's, Pilot's and Engineer's company over living alone. Another of Snippy's fears is to lose his sanity to radiation poisoning and going as mentally insane as the others. After overhearing a bug, Captain's mug and the straw talking, Snippy is half-convinced that this fear will become reality soon. He still hopes that there was a logical explanation for everything happening, nevertheless. Shortly after that, Snippy was kidnapped by another alien judge and confined in the spaceship of the Arbitrator. It tried to convince the captured sniper, that the Captain is only another personality of Snippy. Snippy also opened his backpack and recovered Captain's mask, hat, goggles and scarf. This evidence threw Snippy into a deep identity crisis. But since we learned, that the Captain appears still to be back on Earth, he certainly can't be another personality of Mr. Snippy. While pre-apocalyptic Snippy rarely got any sleep due to the ANNET-induced nightmares and unaffordable sleep-time, his post apocalyptic self is a rather heavy sleeper. Captain and Pilot have taken advantage of this repeatedly to dress him up in crazy costumes or play other pranks on him, while the Sniper was fast asleep. When startled or scared Snippy often utters a: "BWAH?!" . Skills and Equipment Mr. Snippy's headgear consists of a gasmask with two filters and a goggle with blue glasses and goggle-caps. He has begun to wrap a scarf around his head to avoid injuries, since he gets hit by blunt objects quite often thanks to Captain's and Pilot's shenanigans. He probably wears a shroud to complete his headgear as well but as the scarf it would be hidden under the hood of his jacket. The jacket has a black and white pattern, several pockets and shows a small (Good-Directorate) G-emblem with the label 'fireproof' on the left front side. Aside from that, Snippy wears a black shirt and black pants as well as black boots and gloves. Snippy usually carries a rifle around. Further items in his possession are: Captain's shopping lists, a 'property of Captain' note, a Geiger-counter, an old calendar of the year 2012 and a pocketknife. He briefly had a 'bag of cancer summoning', a rubix cube and a half destroyed cellphone in his possession as well. As his title suggests, he is the squad's sniper, meaning he should have the necessary sharp-shooting skills. However the Engineer stated (in his ask-blog?) that Snippy is a terrible gunman, which could mean that Captain just made him the Sniper due to his last name sounding so similar to Sniper. On the other hand we have seen him shooting twice in the story so far and he hit what he was aiming for. Snippy also seems to have a fairly good resilience to stand up to all the traumas and shocks that he seems to receive in carrying out the duties that his insane boss assigns to him. Last but not least Snippy is a very fast runner, being able to outrun Photoshop and the giant-spider-form of the Biomass. Snippy seems well versed in survival skills, able to survive for an undefined time inside a mutated whale and keep surviving in the nuclear-hazard city. He learned his survival skills, such as tracking and gun-handling, during his training as a Dead Zone tour-guide. Similar to Captain, he seems to have a very uncommon luck. Though it doesn't tend to bring him solutions, it at least allows him to survive all odds, from crashing rocket-propelled subways, all the way to near-death bodily injuries, even when it includes completely illogical events in order to make it happen. The Gas Mask Snippy's gas mask is a running gag, especially among the readers, as it seems to represent his emotions with the goggle-caps that are always left opened in a 90º angle. They act as his eyebrows, making all his expressions, since the gas mask conceals the entirety of his face. Another running gag, seen in the Cancer Story Arc is, that Snippy's face was always at least partially obscured in the flashbacks. Relations to other characters Until Engie joined the squad Sniper was the most serious person in the group and the only one with any amount of common sense. This still puts him at odds with the more whimsical Captain, yet the two are shown to get along fine. He is shown to express contempt and sarcasm at Captain from time to time. Snippy fights with Pilot often, perhaps originating from a plot by Pilot to get him eaten by a whale. This resulted in Sniper attempting to strangle Pilot after he escaped. Additionally Pilot likes to play tricks on him or steal his stuff, while the Sniper is sleeping - with or without orders by Captain. So far Mr. Snippy has no idea that Engie is actually the very same Dr. Alexander Gromov, who made his life miserable before the end of the world, and who's actions more or less directly caused the apocalypse. During the earliest beginnings of the Ancestors Story Arc, Snippy get's hold of Captain's Cancer-scarf. To his dread he soon realizes that the scarf in fact is, what remained of the Biomatrix 117. Since the Biomatrix was trapped in the same way as Snippy by the Arbitrator, though, it seems to no longer wish to harm the sniper and instead even granted him his wish for another flashback. With the help of the Biomatrix, Snippy gained access to some of the genetic memories of his earliest ancestors.